First, let me define my terms, and explain clearly what evolution teaches. When I say “evolution,” I do not mean change over time, or even adaptation to new environments. I am referring to the scientific teaching that life came from non-life through random chemical processes, and that all living forms, including humans, evolved by a blind, step-by-step process over vast eons of time. Blind, because the process is unguided.
The famous biologist Jerry Coyne had this to say about the philosophical implications of evolution:

Evolution is unique amongst the sciences because it strikes people in the solar plexus of their faith directly. It strikes them at the idea that they are specially created by God, because evolution says you’re not; it says that there’s no special purpose for your life because it’s a naturalistic philosophy; we have no more extrinsic purpose than a squirrel or an armadillo. And it says that morality does not come from God; it is an evolved phenomenon. And those are three things that are really hard for humans to accept, particularly if they come from a religious tradition.

Here, then, is something to ponder: if God does exist and is the Creator, but evolution teaches that we were not created by God, that there is no special purpose to our lives, and that we are not morally responsible, who invented evolution?

One of the most compelling books I’ve read is Roger Morneau’s A Trip Into the Supernatural. After World War II, he was invited to join a secret society of Satan worshippers. After being part of the society for only a few months, God pulled him out, and he was lead to join the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church. While he was still part of the society, he had a conversation with the high priest of the Satanists that contained important information regarding the theory of evolution.

Here is the story according to the priest: prior to the 18th century, Satan, through his study of Bible prophecy, came to the conclusion that Daniel 12:4 was about to be fulfilled and that the Industrial Revolution was about to begin.

At the beginning of the 18th century, he called a general council of all of his spirit counselors, and they formulated a three-part plan to take complete control of the human mind throughout the period of change that was soon to come upon the world.

The first part of the plan was to convince the world that he and his demons did not exist. This part of the plan succeeded fairly well. As Michael Schermer put it, “By the 18th century, astronomy replaced astrology, chemistry succeeded alchemy, probability theory dislodged belief in luck and fortune…” This laid the foundation for naturalistic thinking—the idea that God does not, ever, interfere with the world.

The second part of the plan was to gain control of people’s minds through hypnotism. He chose the brilliant German doctor Franz Mesmer to accomplish this task. By the end of Mesmer’s career, hypnosis was a respected tool of the medical profession. Now, television shows and popular songs can hypnotize millions of people at once.

The third part of the plan was to destroy the credibility of the Bible. This was to be accomplished through the introduction of the theory of evolution. Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley were chosen by Satan to systematize and popularize this doctrine, in part because they had both been hypnotized as children.

One paragraph of the book in particular bears repeating in its entirety:

To my shock and surprise, the priest then claimed that "the spirits consider anyone who teaches the theory of evolution to be a minister of that great religious system, and the individual will receive a special unction from Satan himself. Satan gives him great power to induce spiritual blindness, to convince, and to convert. In fact, he holds such people in such high regard that he assigns a special retinue of angels to accompany him or her all his or her life. It is the greatest honor that Satan can bestow upon a person in the presence of the galaxy."

So where did such an idea originate according to historical sources? While Charles Darwin gets credit for publishing the first fully-formed exposition of the modern theory of evolution, complete with the driving mechanism of natural selection, the seeds of the theory were planted much earlier. Georges-Louis Leclerc and others in the 18th century argued that organisms had changed over time, and that life had been on the earth for much longer than the Biblical chronology allowed.

One of the preeminent thinkers to propose a rudimentary theory of evolution was actually Erasmus Darwin, Charles’ grandfather. Here are excerpts from a chapter of his book The Temple of Nature, published in 1803:

Ere Time began, from flaming Chaos hurl'd
Rose the bright spheres, which form the circling world;
Earths from each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issued from the first.
Then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth,
Surge over surge, involv'd the shoreless earth;
Nurs'd by warm sun-beams in primeval caves
Organic Life began beneath the waves…

Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing…

Thus the tall Oak, the giant of the wood,
Which bears Britannia's thunders on the flood;
The Whale, unmeasured monster of the main,
The lordly Lion, monarch of the plain,
The Eagle soaring in the realms of air,
Whose eye undazzled drinks the solar glare,
Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd,
Of language, reason, and reflection proud,
With brow erect who scorns this earthly sod,
And styles himself the image of his God;
Arose from rudiments of form and sense,
An embryon point, or microscopic ens!

Piece by piece, the foundation was laid for the acceptance of evolutionary theory on biological grounds. On the geological front, in 1785, James Hutton published his influential work implying a great age to the geological record. In this article, he applied the principle of uniformitarianism (though it wasn’t called that until later) to the earth’s geological history. This was a necessary development for evolutionary theory, because it provided an interpretation of the geological record that suggested that a great deal of time had passed since earth’s formation and the origin of life.

Satan worked so carefully to lay each piece of the groundwork for the theory of evolution that a decade after the publication of On the Origin of Species, evolution had become widely accepted.

Satan’s goal has always been to unite the inhabitants of the earth in rebellion against God. The Satanist priest claimed that accepting the theory of evolution made a person a de facto member of Satan’s kingdom. I am convinced that Satan is overly optimistic about the extent of his kingdom, and that not all the people he claims as his really are (see Ellen White’s comments on the death of Moses, for example). God is merciful and we must never assume that He has given up on a person or does not have a plan for his or her life. Nevertheless, the worldview that accompanies evolution makes some unequivocal claims: God did not create the world in six days, and the creation was not perfect, so the Spirit of God, who inspired the Bible, is a liar. Thus, human reason must be above the clear word of Scripture.

Once human reason is elevated to the place of highest authority in the universe, the consequences described by Jerry Coyne become inescapable. Bereft of any absolute authority, any arbiter of reality, we are forced to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and live a life that has only the feeble, relative meaning we are able to imagine on our own. Our end becomes one of vast nothingness, the epitome of futility.

The theory of evolution also strips the SDA church of its mission and message, minimizing the fall and the hideousness of sin, removing the rationale for remembering the memorial of creation, making Jesus’ ministry on this earth of no effect by the outlawing of miracles (such as the resurrection), and ultimately casting doubt on God’s ability to recreate a new, perfect earth.

Many might think that I’m being too hard on evolutionary theory. After all, doesn’t science support it? I have three responses. First, the Word of God is my foundation. The very short section of the Bible that God wrote with His own finger includes this comment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20: 8, 11). Exodus also records the belligerent rebellion of a man who collected sticks on the Sabbath immediately thereafter and was stoned. This should make it exceedingly clear to us that God was referring to literal days.

Second, the theory of evolution retains its status as “mainstream science” only because the media gatekeepers vigilantly attempt to keep any evidence or reasoning that might dethrone evolution out of the sight of the public. Questioning evolution in scientific journals or the mainstream media is absolutely forbidden.

Third, the theory of evolution is not supported by geological or biological evidence. Evolution does not spring from careful scientific investigation. It is, rather, the outcome of assuming naturalism, and coming up with the best possible theory of origins in the absence of a Creator.

What about theistic evolution? In its most basic form, theistic evolution rests on a foundation of methodological naturalism, and does not contradict Darwinian evolution. Methodological naturalism states that God does not interact with the world, and thus, miracles do not happen. The most important miracles in question are the creation of the world by God, the virgin birth, and Christ’s resurrection. The list of forbidden miracles should also include Christ’s second coming, the resurrection of the dead, and the creation of the earth a second time. Very simply, no miracles = no Christianity.

Theistic evolution is an attempt to gain the friendship of the world while avoiding atheism. First, this is scientifically unnecessary. Second, James had some strong words regarding those who advocate friendship with the world: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God“ (James 4:4).

Let us not capitulate to the demands or the deceptions of the enemy in any way. We, as a church, will pay for any wavering on this issue in the souls of our children. If we stand firmly for truth, God Himself will fight for us.